Many cameras take panoramic images that are adequate for remembering a scene from vacation. While the panoramic image may be suitable for recalling a vacation moment, the panoramic image may be unsuitable for security or military related applications where potentially life and death decisions concerning the delivery of ordinance or other active measures or counter-measures may need to be made in real-time under situational pressures. Data for conventional panoramic images tends to be acquired by a single apparatus along a single axis and contains just the information needed to display a digital version of the panoramic image.
A panoramic imaging system may acquire multiple images (e.g., digital photographs) that when processed into a single image provide a larger field of view than is available in a single image. Conventionally there have been different approaches for acquiring the data for the multiple images that are processed together into a single image that has a larger field of view. Regardless of how the data and multiple images are processed into the single image, the single image still tends to include just the color or intensity information needed to display a digital version of the panoramic image. These panoramic views have typically been unsuitable for certain military applications where real-time decisions need to be made based on surveillance imagery.
Some imaging systems may use active approaches (e.g., radar) to provide additional information for increasing the richness of data associated with a panoramic image. Active measures may be inappropriate for some panoramic view imaging approaches.